If you can swing it, and you think you'll only get one ( yeah, right... just TELL yourself that!) you might as well go for the Correct. The Service Grade is probably the best all around deal, but I say get the best you can afford, and don't look back.
I couldn't decide between the Service and the Correct Grades, so in the best High Road Tradition... I got both. Now I can't decide which I like better. A lot of the Service Grades are coming with new replacement birch stocks, which some love and some hate. The Correct will have original GI walnut. The Service Grade will have mixed parts, SA, HRA, etc. The Service Grade should be a good shooter, maybe better than the Correct, but might, I say MIGHT need the muzzle re-crowned (simple). You might as well get both...why fight it?
In a few days you'll get the "order received, now don't bug us" e-mail. Then the real wait begins. Start hanging out at the CMP forum. Read up on Garands. Buy the Canfield book. Order a bunch of Greek ammo. Watch for forum postings from people who got their "Don't Bug Us" e-mail just before yours, and whose orders have posted as "open".
Now you start logging in to the e-store two or three times a day to check the status of your account. One day you'll tell yourself, "Why bother; I just checked an hour ago?" But you
will check , and can it be? Yes! Your order has posted as "open"! Something is happening!
This is the CMP equivalent of going into labor.
Several more days will drag by. You'll be checking your order status more and more frequently. On the forum, some guy who sent his order in three days after you did will get HIS rifle, and post lots of pictures. You will hate him, especially when you realize he already has 27 other M1s.
Finally you'll check in, and see that your order has gone to "processing." This is the next-to-last step, and is intended to torture you just a little. Make no mistake: you are getting a real deal on this rifle. You have to "pay" somehow.
At last, your order will post as "shipped", and the serial number will be shown. It'll be a 5.4 to 5.6 million, from the mid-to-late 50's. This is the "Elvis Presley" era. Who knows, perhaps you'll get Elvis's rifle!
Your M1 will ship Fed Ex priority air, so you should get it the next day, unless you have to wait over the weekend. (That would be additional agony.)
Now you start checking the tracking on the Fed Ex site: Alabama...Georgia...Memphis...arrived...loaded on truck. Keep watching out the window. Listen! Is that the truck?
For me:
Don't Bug Us e-mail: Feb. 19
Order "open" March 27 (Thursday)
Order "processing" March 31 (Monday)
Order shipped April 2
Rifles arrive April 3.
Here's a current High Road thread about Garands, with pictures. Mine are in there somewhere: just scroll down.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=350546&page=2